I have been worrying about Sarah Mclachlan. How can she compete in a changing music world? I was fretting that she might get all Lady Gaga with it and make a painfully awkward CD appealing to kids. My heroes have embarrassed me before. I have a cardboard box full of embarrassment: artist who listened to the freakin' marketing people instead of their own gut. I still have nightmares of old 60's rockers recording disco songs in the 70's. Or artists from the 1970's recording syn-pop or punk in the 80's. Those albums sit in my closet -- to be pulled out on rainy, depressed days when I feel like a loser and want to feel better about my life. I may be a idiot, but at least I didn't put on pink leopard-print spandex and sing "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?"
When will they learn? The kids will always look at "old people" trying to act with-it and hip as, well -- really creepy. Think grandma trying to dress like her teenage granddaughter. Think Cher. If I were her daughter I'd change my sex and name too. An artist should do what they loved to do (example Tony Bennett) and new generations of fans will find them. Integrity isn't the worst word in the English language. It sure beats "creepy" and "pathetic" all to hell.
I love Sarah's album for being so, well, Sarah. Today I read the reviews that I didn't look at until I heard the album myself (and formed my own damn opinion... thank you very much). "Integrity" isn't the word they used. Try: "Nothing new...", "This could have been recorded in the 90's...", "She's preaching to the converted..." Better yet, they end by giving Sarah advice on how to "fix" her career. Marketing people and meddling record reviewers deserve a very cold place in hell. Abandon all hope ye who take their advice.
It was a relief to hear Sarah staying true to herself. But how would that sell? Her single isn't. I posted a picture of her ass in my last article in hopes of generating interest. The responds? A friend of mine looked at Sarah butt and said "Ohhh, that's kinda hot... in a celluloid kind of way."
Well, today the critics can kiss her big fat Canadian ass. Sarah knows something they didn't. There are two music worlds now: kids downloading the latest Gaga single for free and the... umm, well... old people like myself. People who love CDs. I have portions of an article by Sarah Rodman below that is hilarious and enlightening. It points out why Sarah McLachlan is still the Queen of the album charts. I particularly love this part: "We're appealing to the last buying vestiges of the public, because adults don't steal, because we don't know how to..."
Music for the older set climbs the CD charts
By Sarah Rodman
Boston Globe Staff / June 16, 2010
“Laws of Illusion,’’ the new CD by adult contemporary singer Sarah McLachlan, came out yesterday and will almost certainly debut near the top of the Billboard album chart. Sade had a number one hit in February with her first album in 10 years. Michael Buble, Barbra Streisand, Susan Boyle — all singers who appeal to the over-40 crowd — have recently enjoyed top-five debuts on the album chart.
As consumers buy fewer and fewer CDs, an interesting phenomenon is occurring — artists who appeal to older listeners are showing up surprisingly high on the charts.
The reason: Adults are largely the ones buying CDs these days. Younger people tend to download in general and focus on singles.
“We’re appealing to the last buying vestiges of the public, because adults don’t steal, because we don’t know how to,’’ said legendary producer and songwriter David Foster, who produced Buble’s latest album. Older consumers, he said, are “still married to the concept of ‘put the CD in the car, put the CD in the library.’ We’re still in that zone, and that’s why this is still working.’’
To be sure, the hottest of the pop and hip-hop acts aimed at the younger demographic — Justin Bieber and Eminem, to name two — are still cracking the top spots on the album chart, but more and more it is the acts that appeal to older listeners that rise to the top. Streisand managed to best Mariah Carey when the divas’ most recent releases went head to head for the top spot in October.
Partly this is due to lower overall album sales. The recent reissue of the Rolling Stones’ 1972 album “Exile on Main Street’’ debuted at number two on the strength of only 76,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen Soundscan. Sales in that range have been equally winning for other “heritage acts’’ like Carole King and James Taylor, and Melissa Etheridge. (This has also been a boon to indie acts, which can debut high on the chart with totals in the 40,000 range.)
Mike Mullaney, music director at radio station Mix 104.1, which plays older artists like McLachlan and younger acts like Lady Antebellum, says fans of rock, country, and adult contemporary — largely older listeners — tend to be supportive of individual artists, “whereas the pop world is much more song-oriented.’’
“Most people won’t give you the gift of a download card; they’ll buy you a CD,’’ Pietroluongo said. “A lot of these artists that have done well, like the Susan Boyles and the Michael Bubles and the Josh Grobans. It’s like, ‘Well, what am I going to get my mom, sister, aunt, grandma as a gift or a stocking stuffer that’s under 20 bucks?’ ’’
Sarah Rodman can be reached at srodman@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
In the next few months I will give you a glimpse of a work in progress. It will be called “Starry, Starry Playground” -- it is book about artists, mental illness and being diffrent.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Really Creepy
Friday, June 18, 2010
Tit
Like the title? Does it make you want to download music? It should. A while ago Hayley Williams of Paramore...
A) had her twitter account hacked...
B) didn't understand the difference between a private and a public message in a new app...
C) wanted to generate interest in her music...
...and a picture she took of herself topless magically appeared on her Twitter account.
Since then people have started following her twitter account in droves, her single with B.o.B. "Airplanes" is near the top of the charts and Paramore just sold out the O2 Arena in England. Dang, those must be a pretty amazing pair. Well, frankly my dear, I've seen her breasts and... I downloaded the single. The power of a pair of boobs is amazing. But in my defense Hayley has orange hair, is a little pixie, wares the geekiest glasses, has a tattoo on her leg that reads: "Shave Me" and is so EMO. How could I not be smitten? She's everything I like in a gal. And in fairness she is a good singer.
Who am I kidding? I fell for it. Sucker.
Now I've been hearing rumblings that Sarah McLachlan's 2010 Lilth Fair is fumbling toward bankruptcy. That's awful. Her latest album, "Laws of Illusion", is her best CD yet. She may have written better songs ("Possession", "Angel", and "Good Enough") but no album holds together better as a complete work from beginning to end. It is about her marriage: the trouble, the end and the emotional aftermath. It is a real, heartfelt masterpiece and... her first single hasn't even charted.
She has talent, a compelling story, and an amazing voice. Didn't she pave the way for so many women in music (who are to "busy" to perform at the 2010 Lilth Fair)? Where did she go wrong? What does Hayley, Lady Gaga, Britney, Christina, Katy, Hannah and Mylie got that Sarah ain't got?
Oh, showing those? Mmmm, you're right. Let me fix that. Mr. and Ms. Fan, for your viewing pleasure: Sarah McLachlan's butt. Now run out and buy her CD already. Don't make me post an upskirt of Katy Perry. And as for you Hayley, Gaga, Britney, Christina, Katy, Hannah and Mylie... as far as I'm concerned, you can kiss Sarah McLachlan's big fat Canadian ass.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Good Enough by Sarah Mclachlan
"Good Enough"
by Sarah McLachlan
Bill DeMain: What was the inspiration behind "Good Enough?"
Sarah: A lot of things. That song has been such an amazing experience for me because I've learned so much from it. There's so many different stories that I attach to it now. But it sort of came from, initially really missing my best girlfriend. It started out as fiction, about a couple in which the woman was pretty much alienated by just about everybody, because her husband was really abusive and domineering, which sort of somewhat mirrors my mother and father's relationship. And basically, I am the friend coming in, saying hey, you deserve more than this, why don't you come with me and I'll take care of you. The video that I'm going to do for that song is the first sort of dramatic narrative that I've done. Everything else has been pretty abstract, trying to find a parallel universe to describe it differently. But we're going to have a little girl, a man and woman, and a friend, possibly an imaginary friend. We're going to look at the relationship between the little girl and her friends and also between the mother and the little girl. And there's quite a bit of alienation from the father, who's been behind the scenes the whole time anyway.
Bill DeMain: Are songs an act of discovery for you?
Sarah: Yeah, and sometimes long after the fact. Going back to "Good Enough," one of the things I was focusing on was don't tell me why he's never been good to you, don't tell me why nothing's good enough. For a couple years, every time I'd see my mom, I'd say, you know, you deserve more, you deserve to be happier than you are. Why are you putting up with this? Basically telling her that the only thing she knew sucked. So she never wanted to see me, and I wondered why. I couldn't understand it, then I wrote that song. Around the same time, I tried reverse psychology and didn't hassle her anymore and just accepted that she had accepted. Then she opened up. She completely changed and she started saying, I'm not going to accept this anymore, I'm changing this and this and this. It was fantastic, because I wasn't beating it into her, she was doing it on her own. That song taught me that. I have a lot of emotional attachment to that song.
-- Sarah McLachlan Finds Her Own Walden Pond by by Bill DeMain
(www.taxi.com/faq/songwriting/mclachlan.html)
"Good Enough"
Sarah McLachlan
Hey your glass is empty
it's a hell of a long way home
why don't you let me take you
it's no good to go alone
I never would have opened up
but you seemed so real to me
after all the bullshit I've heard
it's refreshing now to see
I don't have to pretend
she doesn't expect it from me
Don't tell me I haven't been good to you
don't tell me I have never been there for you
just tell me why
nothing is good enough
Hey little girl would you like some candy
your momma said that it's OK
The door is open come on outside
no I can't come out today
it's not the wind that cracked your shoulder
and threw you to the ground
who's there that makes you so afraid
you're shaken to the bone
and I don't understand
you deserve so much more than this
So don't tell me why
he's never been good to you
don't tell me why
he's never been there for you
don't you know that why
is simply not good enough
so just let me try
and I will be good to you
just let me try
and I will be there for you
I'll show you why
you're so much more than good enough.